


distant seas with familiar shores

by sure sure (getoffmysheets)



Category: Dishonored (Video Games), Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Abduction, BAMF Jonathan Byers, Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, F/M, Family Secrets, Good Sibling Nancy Wheeler, Minor Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Moral Ambiguity, i never promised this would be coherent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:48:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26999182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getoffmysheets/pseuds/sure%20sure
Summary: “…but it ain’t his fault.”
Relationships: Jonathan Byers & Joyce Byers & Will Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper, Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	distant seas with familiar shores

**Author's Note:**

> Quick write-up, wanted to see if I can still manage a short story now and then without exploding (the jury is still out on that…) Welcome back to the “I Love Jonathan Byers” talk show, which in my mind, is running 24/7 so be thankful I occasionally remember to write other things. Anyone who knows my work should’ve guessed that I would eventually get here, because this involves 2 of my favorite things: video game AUs and Jonathan Byers.

The other people throughout Cyria District, Upper and Lower, whisper things about him to her, sometimes while he’s still within obvious hearing distance. A couple of gruesomely eager old neighborhood gossips, men and women alike, even gleefully warn her never to be alone with Jonathan Byers, not for even a few moments.

“I know you’re from the Capital, miss,” old Tober the grocers says with a sniff, as she’s sweeping the bristly beard hair from the parquet floors. “And so, you don’t really understand…”

Nancy turns away so that she can roll her eyes out of sight. What Tober says next makes her head whip back around in surprise, so hard that she winces at the pain in her neck.

“…but it ain’t his fault.”

“What do you mean?” Nancy asks, frowning.

Tober sucked his teeth, thoughtful and a bit sad. “It’s the whole Byers family, miss. For as long as anyone can remember – even when I was a child – that whole family is cursed, miss.” Nancy stares at him, wide-eyed in shock. “Course back then, it was Old Daniel, Jon’s great-grandfather, who had it the worst. But now that poor Jon’s the last one left, they’ve all forgotten the stories – they giggle behind his back and say that he’s mad or he’s dangerous, and maybe it’s so. But don’t think too badly of ‘im, miss. It ain’t Jon’s fault he’s got such an unlucky star watchin’ over ‘im.”

“I-I don’t understand,” Nancy admits slowly, heart beating faster in her chest. She hopes that it doesn’t show on her face. It’s the first time she’s ever heard anyone speak with such a sympathetic view of Jonathan Byers – and the first time she’s heard the word ‘cursed’ in nearly two years. “What do you mean that his whole family is cursed?”

Now Tober’s look becomes slightly shrewd for a moment before he finally relents. “…you ain’t heard it from me, miss. But the Outsider drives every Byers – man, woman, and child – utterly mad. His poor brother…well. I shouldn’t say,” he admits, a bit shame-faced. “Excepting that I don’t want some other bugger telling you a crock of lies. Ten years back or so, Jon’s little brother Will…well, the poor child fell into the canal and drowned, and there Jon found him, floating near the Lower Cyria lock gate.”

“How awful!” Nancy whispers, swallowing hard. She hopes that she looks sympathetic and understanding and not terrified and excited and-and a thousand other things she can’t name.

Tober nods thoughtfully, apparently unaware of her turmoil. “Aye, it was. Their mother Joyce was absolutely devastated. That poor woman just expired of grief,” he tutted. “Just faded away right before our very eyes. And Jon, he’s-he’s never really been the same, either. So don’t pay nobody no mind, whenever they get bored and start lookin’ to entertain themselves.”

“I see,” Nancy says, feeling something like vindication now. She’s glad now to have listened to her instincts and ignored the rumors and whispers. “…why would anyone lie about that, though? It’s already a dreadful story…”

“Yes,” Tober agrees grimly. “And I’ve done my best, but there’s gonna be folks what say Jon is the one who murdered young Will – and later, that Joyce killed herself because she couldn’t live with knowing that one son had killed the other. Don’t listen to ‘em, miss. Ain’t nothing Jon loved more than that little boy. He’d have sooner thrown himself into the canal than drowned Will. I’ll never deny that there’s somethin’ the matter with him, but like I told ya, it ain’t his fault.”

“If-if he’s really…really cursed, couldn’t the Abbey help him, Tober?” she asks tentatively, though she has to suppress a grimace at the mention of the Abbey of the Everyman coming from her own mouth. The Overseers in Dunwall certainly hadn’t helped her or Mike, in the end. Just ensured that every person in the city who walked past them looked on them with suspicion and fear – unless they were staring with glee at the Wheeler family’s spectacular fall from grace.

Only dear, good Steve had still seen the person she used to be before the whispers began, and it was Steve who used his connections in the guard to help her to flee when Nancy could no longer explain where Mike was – when he feared that she would be taken to Holger Square, and never return again.

She feels something like relief, something she dare not call gladness, when Old Tober the grocer snorts, then struggles to school his expression into one of less derision – and not successfully. “Aye, miss,” he sighs. “Alas, the Abbey believes that this is the universe’s punishment for the wickedness of the Byers’ ancestors. They shan’t lift a finger to help him.”

She murmurs, “That’s too bad, Tober” and goes back to sweeping off the floors so that he won’t be able to see her genuine surprise. “It’s a shame that any man should have to live such a life.”

“Too right you are, miss.”

Avoidance is not the tactic of a bully in power – and that, for all their pretensions, are all that the Overseers have ever been. She and Mike were dragged up the high road along John Clavering Boulevard to see the High Overseer himself twice a month. After they could no longer find her brother, they began questioning Nancy nearly every day. It was one of the few times in her life she’d been thankful she hadn’t been granted a more womanly figure…all the better to remain beneath High Overseer Campbell’s notice.

Avoidance in a bully was an unmistakable sign of fear. So why was the Abbey here in Karnaca too afraid to challenge the existence and behavior of Jonathan Byers?

Nancy lifts her gaze from the ground after locking the shop door behind her for the day, the city view to her left bathed in burning orange light from the setting sun, and tries not to look eager when her eyes meet those of the man watching from across the square at a collection of outdoor tables. 

Jonathan's lips move, eyes flickering up to meet hers and away again as he speaks to thin air. Undaunted, Nancy approaches him.

"Hello, Jonathan," she says, flushing a little at how breathy and warm it comes from her mouth.

“No, why should I?” he mumbles, and she knows that he isn’t speaking to her – his eyes are lowered, focused on some spot down and to her right. It was one of the first reasons she began to suspect that Jonathan wasn’t quite as crazy as the local townsfolk wanted her to believe. He seemed to recognize that there was a difference between speaking to a real human and speaking to whatever spirit he held an audience with.

His eyes flicker up to hers, a sympathetic line tugging at places she thought long dead as she sees how tired and worn he looks. Bruise-colored circles ringed both eyes. Jonathan never looks _well-fed_ , exactly, but today his cheeks are more hollow than usual, his jaw and brow-bone even more prominently displayed as a result. “Hello, Nancy.”

She gazes out at the landscape around them, at the devastating beauty of the sun setting over the sea and the fading light blazing across the Serkonan architecture of the city. To her, it was breath-taking, though most natives to Karnaca barely seemed to notice. “Are you out here taking pictures today?”

She hopes so – Jonathan made money by selling his photographs to more well-established development studios, as far as she could tell, and he looked desperately in need of a meal. _Soon_. She always knew when Jonathan had taken a particular photo in the displays of the shop – no one else had his eye, his artistry, or his ability to capture a moment at the perfect time and place.

“Mm, yeah,” he murmurs, distracted. Fingers twitching, he whispers something that might be ‘ _northwest’_ or perhaps ‘ _request’_.

Patiently, she waits for him to say something else. Anything else. Some days are better than others, but she’s learned through the painful experience of stilted conversations and long silences that there are some things that will encourage Jonathan to talk more and some things that will make him shut down completely.

Talking about his pictures or asking questions about Karnaca itself often yields good results, with entire dialogues that are almost like talking to any other person in the neighborhood – and his knowledge of the city seems endless, but she supposes that comes from being born here. Asking any questions about Jonathan himself, asking anything more invasive than his current mood, is a guaranteed way of ensuring that their conversation is effectively over. Nancy genuinely does not know if this is because he just doesn’t want her to actually know anything about his life or if Jonathan literally does not know how to talk about himself to anyone.

He stirs slightly and she perks up, trying not to look too eager. “Today is Tuesday.”

Nancy is not sure whether this is a question or a statement, so simply says “Yes.”

“…do you work this Sunday, Nancy?”

“Um, no,” she says, feeling oddly flustered. “The shop is closed. Nobody wants to spend their Sunday getting a shave.”

“I see,” he says softly. “…well, then. I hope you enjoy your day off, Nancy.”

“Thank you,” she murmurs, disappointed again, though she’s not quite sure why.

The two of them stand there, watching the sun slowly sink into the sea on the western side of the bay in silence and Nancy tries not to let her utter dismay show on her face as she realizes that these moments with Jonathan feel more intimate, in a way, than entire conversations with other people.

She is dazed to discover that they are now standing and staring at each other in the near-darkness, their small private view several yards from the nearest street lamps which are barely beginning to glow into life. Her heart beats a mile a minute for no discernable reason and they stand so close together that for a moment, Nancy wonders if he intends to kiss her – and wonders, too, whether she loves that idea, or hates it.

But then Jonathan steps back from her, letting the gathering night drop him in shadows. The sudden sink in her stomach seems to be the unfortunate answer to Nancy’s previously uncertain question, foolish as it was. She tells herself that she doesn’t even know if Jonathan is capable of loving her, and immediately feels awful for it.

There was no basis for it beyond the views of the other townspeople, excluding old Tober. Once upon a time, he loved his brother and likely loved his mother as well. Nancy never actually sees him do it, but a flower always appears in the vase at the table on the balcony where she eats breakfast every morning, whenever she’s recently spoken to Jonathan. So yes, she knows that he is capable of love.

This doesn’t mean that he owes his love to _her_.

Jonathan says, almost a gentle sigh “Goodnight, Nancy.”

Her eyes burn. Her stomach hurts.

“Goodnight…Jonathan,” she whispers, gently setting a bright red Morley apple upon the ledge. She hopes that if it isn’t given directly to him as charity, he may actually eat it.

She passes by a wanted poster, illuminated by a street lamp. It’s the same one that’s been there for months, so she barely glances at it. Nobody has mentioned even a whisper of it, so Nancy knows that she is the only one who can see it there.

Behind her, she hears Jonathan say, with a soft caressing sigh “ ** _Blossoming flower_** ” but when she turns around, he’s already gone.

Nancy chews her lip and ends up staring directly at the poster again, as she had for hours over the course of many months. He isn’t as handsome in black-and-white, but there is something very comely about the hardness in his eyes, the controlled rage in the shape of his mouth. She would be embarrassed to spend so much time looking at it, if anyone other than her could actually _see_ it.

_WANTED: The Head of JONATHAN BYERS  
10,000 Gold Coins  
Paid by the Grand Guard_

Wanted For:  
Murder, Theft, Arson, Witchcraft,  
and Other Crimes Against the Grand Duke

\---

Nancy thought it was normal as a little girl, in the way that every child assumes that their own experiences are normal, and so…she talks about it when she should be keeping quiet. Points out injuries that people don’t really have, or objects that aren’t where she sees them to be.

By the time she understands that she must be silent, it’s already much too late. The Overseers have questions for her – always, _always_ the question, but she has no explanations to offer. Shortly afterwards, Mike tells her about playing games sometimes, playing with a girl who has black eyes, and they begin interrogating him as well. Things only escalated with the strange way her friend Barb had died, and then again after Mike turned sixteen and seemed to vanish from the city, without so much as a goodbye.

Their father sank their family to the edge of poverty trying to pay bribes to High Overseer Campbell – fees paid to keep his children from being permanently imprisoned in Holger Square…or worse. Slowly, Nancy separated Mike and herself from their parents and their baby sister Holly.

It wasn’t the Wheelers that the Overseers had their sights set on, just them. She hasn’t had direct contact with anyone other than Mike in over five years. Without the two of them their to remind Dunwall of the oddness that lived in the Wheeler family, her father was able to gather a little more resources and pull her mother and sister out of the gutter, though of course they still had to live more modestly than they had in their previous life, but with only one child to provide for and one daughter to raise a dowry price, it was significantly better than they could have managed if their two eldest children had stayed with them – though Nancy suspected even now that her mother would’ve preferred to struggle together than survive apart. The pair of them hadn’t allowed her the choice.

She gave them different names, moved them across the city where no one would recognize the two of them, even though the Overseers eventually found them again later anyway. They didn’t care a whit if their mother was worried.

Nancy taught the teenage girls of the Distillery District, the Old Port District, and Drapers Ward how to set their hair, how to apply their lipstick and blush so that it look nearly natural. They trusted her and liked her, and she became the preferred lady to call on when an old widow wanted to hide her grays or a middle-class housewife was trying to help her husband impress his boss during dinner. And Nancy learned not to talk about what she saw when no one else could see them – no matter how much some of those things disturbed her.

And when Michael turned sixteen, he did to Nancy what they had done to their own mother – disappearing under cover of darkness, all traces of him vanished. And Nancy knew then that she was just like Karen Wheeler, in the end. She would’ve preferred to struggle with him, if her second choice was loss.

But he hadn’t given that choice to her, either.

\---

Nancy feels hair itching at the back of her neck, but cannot scratch it while her hands are busy wiping down the equipment. As she told Jonathan, Sunday is supposed to be her day off, and it had been – until her co-worker Martina had disobeyed the shop owner Eolina and Nancy herself and cleaned the entire shop on Friday night with krust-shell powder.

The powder was an effective cleaner and left surfaces, especially metal, shiny and sparkling. But it was also incredibly corrosive and invisible when blended with water and had to be rinsed very, very thoroughly or it would damage their metal equipment and cause painful blisters whenever it came into contact with skin.

Unsurprisingly, Eolina had Martina fired when a wealthy customer laid down for a massage and ended up with weeping sores all over her stomach and in her place, Nancy was being paid for a Sunday of extra cleaning duties she never wanted to begin with.

Grumbling silently, Nancy straightens when she hears a noise from the direction of the offices behind her – it sounds like…Jonathan? “…and then, with a…but I…Hopper said that we...”

Her face, unbeknownst to her, brightens up immediately. Nancy’s quite certain that she locked both the front door and the side door leading from the covered alleyway – he must have snuck in through one of the windows then. It’s terribly naughty of him to have broken in, but she can’t help but feel glad that he’s come to keep her company. She wonders if he’d tried to visit her balcony first, as he sometimes did, or if he’d heard that she would be here today.

Nancy finishes wiping down Eolina’s needle set and frowns when Jonathan still has not appeared to say hello, only continues murmuring in the offices. Throwing her gloves and apron into the fabrics bin to be washed later, she fluffs her dark hair with a restless hand to stand and stretch, wincing at the aches this day’s work has caused in her lower back and shoulder.

When she turns around toward the hall leading into the offices, she finds Jonathan standing there, mouth agape as he stares at her, frozen in shock. Distantly, she notes that there’s a spot of dried blood on his lower lip and a fading yellow bruise over his right eye.

And then, his body seems to turn into mud for a moment and vanishes right in front of her very eyes, a gasp of horror escaping her before an arm grabs her around the waist and a hand covers her mouth. To her embarrassment, a squeak of relief escapes her when she hears Jonathan’s voice in her ear.

“Why didn’t you tell me she was here in the building?” he croaks. He sounds _angry_ , and for the first time, Nancy actually does feel a tiny bit afraid of Jonathan. There’s something attached to his wrist that digging painfully into her collarbone and she’s close enough to smell his breath as he speaks and it reeks of copper – like he’s bleeding inside his mouth.

There was a pause of space where Nancy wonders if whatever or whoever he speaks to is answering him, when a figure actually appears in front of her. Her loud yelp is muffled by Jonathan’s hand as she tries to get away from the little girl in the ragged black dress that now stands in front of her.

“This is much more interesting, don’t you think?” the Outsider asks, standing with her hands behind her, an eerie gleam in the Void-black sleekness of her eyes.

Her voice sends a shrieking note of terror through Nancy’s brain and she whimpers, a single tear escaping her eye. Jonathan looks at her, alarmed. “Are you letting her _see_ you, Oh? I don’t think that’s good idea.”

“Yes,” the Outsider says mildly. She comes closer and Nancy leans farther away, pushing herself against Jonathan’s chest to get away from the penetrating black stare of the little demon girl. Eerily, she notices that her brown curls are tied with white ribbons. “I don’t think she likes me.”

“You’re _surprised_?” he says wryly. He uses his hold on Nancy’s jaw to turn her face toward him, their eyes meeting. “Don’t scream,” he warns, before removing his hand and releasing her.

“ _Jonathan_ ,” she whispers, half-terrified and half-furious.

“She sees things,” the Outsider murmurs. “Things others cannot. The secret places in the world where the Void leaks through and splits its edges. She has seen your death, and fears it."

"You took my brother," Nancy whispers, staring at the little girl with a ball of dread in her stomach. Mike would be almost twenty now, a man. She must continue believing that he is alive, even if it isn't true. She has to believe that he is out there, a grown man living his own life and making his own choices. But his young playmate with her oily black eyes has never grown any older, despite the weight of thousands of years upon her shoulders. 

" _Michael_ ," the young girl coos softly, a smile spreading over her face, the name rippling from her mouth with a delicious shudder. She blinks her dark eyes, touching her fingers to her smiling lips. Like she and Nancy share a secret. "Yes, he's such a good boy, isn't he? I know Jonathan won't mind, so I can tell you that he's my favorite." 

Jonathan stares at Nancy. "Is that true? What Oh said about what you see?"

She has denied it, turned away from it, pretended that it wasn't happening for the majority of her life. This _Vision_ that she has...it's cost Nancy her family, her fortune, and in all probability her very future. But he is looking at her like she is the light of his salvation.

“Tell her,” the Outsider says, and both humans stare at her, speechless – though for different reasons. The god is holding Nancy in her terrifying gaze. 

“Have you gone insane?” Jonathan demands, looking frustrated, like he was having an argument with a petulant younger sibling. “You said it yourself, I’m closer than anyone else has ever gotten.”

“Tell her _everything_ , Jonathan.” The smile was utterly horrifying, but the sudden blankness of the Outsider's expression scares her even more. "Tell her what we will do."

And Jonathan takes a breath and says the last thing Nancy expected to hear: "I'm going to kill the Outsider."

**Author's Note:**

> for spooky season. as a treat.


End file.
